Why is this surprising? Osama bin Laden figured this out 15 years ago, and stopped using electronic communications because there was no way to guarantee their security in the face of NSA monitoring. That's why we didn't find him within a few days after 9/11 and put a missile up his ass.

I mean, allegedly. They could be innocent. I'm sorry. Please don't assassinate me. Some of my best friends are... oh, crap, they aren't.

It goes even farther back than that.

Really, if you look at it in broad conceptual strokes, it's just the targeting of a particular transmitter. We've been doing that ever since the first radio direction finding fix was sent to an artillery battery, probably back in WWI.

dittybopper:Why is this surprising? Osama bin Laden figured this out 15 years ago, and stopped using electronic communications because there was no way to guarantee their security in the face of NSA monitoring. That's why we didn't find him within a few days after 9/11 and put a missile up his ass.

I've been watching a series from Discovery channel called "I (almost) got away with it"; in some of the crimes from the late-90s/though the 2000's, I've wondered if the "anonymous informant" wasn't actually the NSA, as in several instances the criminals being interviewed specifically went out of their way to chose escape avenues/locations that they'd never previously mentioned to anyone and/or had no contact with anyone from their previous lives.

"Unlike a cell phone, a radio that is turned on but that isn't actively being used doesn't give away its location."

Oh yes it does. It doesn't carry a long distance, but it is detectable and very targetable.

It really hasn't been since about WWII, back when regenerative receivers were all the rage.

Modern superhets do radiate, to a degree, but it is *VERY* weak and even very sensitive receivers with high-gain antennas aren't going to be able to pick out that radiation from any significant distance.

"Unlike a cell phone, a radio that is turned on but that isn't actively being used doesn't give away its location."

Oh yes it does. It doesn't carry a long distance, but it is detectable and very targetable.

FWIW; If you're visiting family in Pakistan and someone starts talking about how well their jihad is going, maybe it's time to leave the building.

How is a radio detectable when it's not transmitting?

He's alluding to signal leakage from the local oscillator in the receiver. But that's not anywhere near significant and it's not practical to use for targeting from any distance beyond essentially rifle range.

This highlights my confusion about certain terrorist aims and their people. They claim to hate the western world. Yet, it appears they love what it invents, offers, sells and means. They love technology, access to the internet (long as it meets with their warped ideas of what's reasonable to view. Kind of like the Catholic church of old that said if it isn't in the bible, then it's not worthy of reading), they love fast vehicles, modern medicine(s), modern weapons. The list is endless. They just want to wrap the bullsh*t up in a nice deluded package of how the world should work they way they imagine, not the way it is. Terrorists are truly a f*cked up species of human. Homoretardus. They need to go extinct.

dittybopper:It really hasn't been since about WWII, back when regenerative receivers were all the rage.

Even then, more often than not it was used as a "cover story" for other things.

For example, a captured British pilot (apparently thinking quickly on his feet) told the Germans that the reason their u-boats were being attacked without warning from their meter-wavelength Metox radar receivers is that the aircraft were homing in on the radiation from the receiver, something that the Germans tested and found to be plausible enough that they forbade the use of the Metox.

What was really happening is that the Allies had started installing centimetric wavelength radars in their aircraft, which the Metox couldn't detect.

AT&T isn't bad service wise. I've always been happy with my reception, call quality, and net speeds, but the price just sucks and there's no real benefit to their extra data plan. Costs either $20 more a month for 2gb...or $10 for every gb over. Tethering plan is also $20 for two gb... or just flash a non AT&T rom and get free tethering while watching data use.

/if it connects to something else, it can be tracked, that's all ya need to know//Motorola phones pick up service where other phones have none....like where I camp at///if you're seriously worried about the NSA, design a space station/colony and leave Earth; they can pretty much track anyone anywhere if they want to, at least in space it'll take longer to get to you...unless there's a spy in your ranks

indarwinsshadow:This highlights my confusion about certain terrorist aims and their people. They claim to hate the western world. Yet, it appears they love what it invents, offers, sells and means. They love technology, access to the internet (long as it meets with their warped ideas of what's reasonable to view. Kind of like the Catholic church of old that said if it isn't in the bible, then it's not worthy of reading), they love fast vehicles, modern medicine(s), modern weapons. The list is endless. They just want to wrap the bullsh*t up in a nice deluded package of how the world should work they way they imagine, not the way it is. Terrorists are truly a f*cked up species of human. Homoretardus. They need to go extinct.

They want what we have, without having to go through all the trouble to make and maintain it themselves. Just like Occupy Wall Street.

/"you have it, I want it, I'll take it"//"but now it broke, and it's your fault for sabotaging it so I can't use it"

"Unlike a cell phone, a radio that is turned on but that isn't actively being used doesn't give away its location."

Oh yes it does. It doesn't carry a long distance, but it is detectable and very targetable.

FWIW; If you're visiting family in Pakistan and someone starts talking about how well their jihad is going, maybe it's time to leave the building.

How is a radio detectable when it's not transmitting?

He's alluding to signal leakage from the local oscillator in the receiver. But that's not anywhere near significant and it's not practical to use for targeting from any distance beyond essentially rifle range.

Carousel Beast:dittybopper: Why is this surprising? Osama bin Laden figured this out 15 years ago, and stopped using electronic communications because there was no way to guarantee their security in the face of NSA monitoring. That's why we didn't find him within a few days after 9/11 and put a missile up his ass.

I've been watching a series from Discovery channel called "I (almost) got away with it"; in some of the crimes from the late-90s/though the 2000's, I've wondered if the "anonymous informant" wasn't actually the NSA, as in several instances the criminals being interviewed specifically went out of their way to chose escape avenues/locations that they'd never previously mentioned to anyone and/or had no contact with anyone from their previous lives.

/Not a bad criminal series. Worth a look if you have Netflix

Well If Im ever on the run I'm gonna head to the nearest truck stop, duct tape my cell phone under a truck where"the man"will be looking for IT while I qm heading in another direction in a different vehicle.

indarwinsshadow:This highlights my confusion about certain terrorist aims and their people. They claim to hate the western world. Yet, it appears they love what it invents, offers, sells and means. They love technology, access to the internet (long as it meets with their warped ideas of what's reasonable to view. Kind of like the Catholic church of old that said if it isn't in the bible, then it's not worthy of reading), they love fast vehicles, modern medicine(s), modern weapons. The list is endless. They just want to wrap the bullsh*t up in a nice deluded package of how the world should work they way they imagine, not the way it is. Terrorists are truly a f*cked up species of human. Homoretardus. They need to go extinct.

Terrorist like fast vehicles??What is this, "The Fast & The Furriest?!"

Resident Muslim:indarwinsshadow: This highlights my confusion about certain terrorist aims and their people. They claim to hate the western world. Yet, it appears they love what it invents, offers, sells and means. They love technology, access to the internet (long as it meets with their warped ideas of what's reasonable to view. Kind of like the Catholic church of old that said if it isn't in the bible, then it's not worthy of reading), they love fast vehicles, modern medicine(s), modern weapons. The list is endless. They just want to wrap the bullsh*t up in a nice deluded package of how the world should work they way they imagine, not the way it is. Terrorists are truly a f*cked up species of human. Homoretardus. They need to go extinct.

Terrorist like fast vehicles??What is this, "The Fast & The Furriest?!"

Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich:indarwinsshadow: This highlights my confusion about certain terrorist aims and their people. They claim to hate the western world.

You don't really buy the "they hate us for our freedoms" line, do you?

Thinking about it, that's a complex question. On one hand, it's easy to dismiss some terrorists because of their lack of education and their indoctrination from the beginning into hating the western world. Yet, there's intelligent terrorists as well who are well educated and have been raised in a western world. Right now there's a trial going on in Canada, where three men stand accused of planning a terrorist act in Canada. The three are all well educated and have spent extensive time surrounded by western culture and ideas. The highlighted link goes to one of the accused who even additioned for Canadian idol (good Christ what a nut). So, my only conclusions is there is a disconnect between their rational and their emotional. A delusion where they feel their loyalty is based on their faith and the colour of their skin. It's complex isn't it? I don't get how you can hate something you love. Makes no sense to me.

skeevy420:AT&T isn't bad service wise. I've always been happy with my reception, call quality, and net speeds, but the price just sucks and there's no real benefit to their extra data plan. Costs either $20 more a month for 2gb...or $10 for every gb over. Tethering plan is also $20 for two gb... or just flash a non AT&T rom and get free tethering while watching data use.

/if it connects to something else, it can be tracked, that's all ya need to know//Motorola phones pick up service where other phones have none....like where I camp at///if you're seriously worried about the NSA, design a space station/colony and leave Earth; they can pretty much track anyone anywhere if they want to, at least in space it'll take longer to get to you...unless there's a spy in your ranks

If there was an agent that sneaked aboard when he was all like (in best Daffy Duck voice) "You're all under arrest" Im pretty sure he would end up being released out the air lock.

indarwinsshadow:Yet, there's intelligent terrorists as well who are well educated and have been raised in a western world.

I think Faisal Shahzad is a good example of that. If you look at what motivated him, it's pretty clear because we got to hear him explicitly say it - he was upset by the way the US targets and kills Muslims abroad as part of the War on Terror. He chose a horrible, unjustifiable way to act on his anger, but his anger itself - that the US routinely kills innocent civilians and to most Americans, no matter how many innocent people die in Pakistan or Afghanistan, places they couldn't even point to on a map, it's an acceptable price to Keep Us Safe, is a fairly rational response to the United State's aggression and violence.

"He's alluding to signal leakage from the local oscillator in the receiver. But that's not anywhere near significant and it's not practical to use for targeting from any distance beyond essentially rifle range."

That is part of it, but any circuit with lots of closely packed components are spitting out all sorts of electrical noise. In a low RF environment, they stand out. The distances are indeed relatively short but useable.

Oldiron_79:Well If Im ever on the run I'm gonna head to the nearest truck stop, duct tape my cell phone under a truck where"the man"will be looking for IT while I qm heading in another direction in a different vehicle.

Not a bad idea.

A better idea is to just never, ever have or use one.

Even if you tape the cellphone to a truck and go off in a different direction, they'll still have all the records of where your phone went prior to you doing that little trick. So they'll know all your habits. Who you call, where you work, when you work, where you shop, etc. They'll know about the fishing trip to Lake Winnewackamole, etc. They'll know everywhere you've been (well, everywhere your phone has been) ever since you activated it.

They'll know who you called, and who called you, and the when, where, and how long of each of those calls. They'll know who you texted, e-mailed, disgracebooked, etc.

They will be able to build up a profile on you that is so scarily accurate that it's likely that they can predict to a fair degree of accuracy where you are going after your little duct-tape stunt, unless you consciously decide to break with your past patterns, and you cut off all contact with your friends and family.

Just a few years ago, the above paragraphs would be considered the ranting of a paranoid. Except that we *KNOW*, thanks to Edward Snowden, that it's true that they can do that, and the paranoiacs were correct, at least in the general outline of capability (if not in them specifically being targeted).

So how do you prevent them from doing that?

Don't carry a phone on you in the first place. It's not strictly necessary, despite what we tell ourselves: It's a modern convenience which most people didn't have even just 20 years ago. Even today, I get along just fine without carrying a cell phone everywhere I go.

dittybopper:Don't carry a phone on you in the first place. It's not strictly necessary, despite what we tell ourselves: It's a modern convenience which most people didn't have even just 20 years ago. Even today, I get along just fine without carrying a cell phone everywhere I go.

Look, for a lot of us, carrying a smart phone is a necessity. I'm between work and so I bid on a lot of small IT jobs. If a work order goes out, and I don't have access to my e-mail to see it and put in an offer, someone else might have in 10 or 15 minutes. Either I sit at my computer all day or I miss out on money.

"He's alluding to signal leakage from the local oscillator in the receiver. But that's not anywhere near significant and it's not practical to use for targeting from any distance beyond essentially rifle range."

That is part of it, but any circuit with lots of closely packed components are spitting out all sorts of electrical noise. In a low RF environment, they stand out. The distances are indeed relatively short but useable.

Most people don't live in a low RF environment. It's completely impractical outside of a very rural area.

And "relatively short" is actually so short that any drone that could lock on to a signal like that would be so close it could be downed by conventional machine gun fire.

Then, of course, we have a serious problem: How do you distinguish between the incidental radiation from Faisal McFarmer who is listening to the BBC World Service on his old Grundig and Bomb-head Mohammed who is listening for secret instructions on HF radio?

Essentially, you can't be sure, and you'd have to be within a few hundred yards under optimum conditions (and probably no more than 150 or 200 yards on average) to be able to effectively target that kind of thing in the first place.

With a cellphone, on the other hand, you've got a unique phone number and a unique electronic serial number (can't remember the name offhand for that). Plus, it's radiating at many, many times the wattage of the incidental radiation from electronics and the LOs of receivers, meaning it's practical for a drone to carry a receiver that can pick out that particular cellphone from the hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands within range, which can extend for miles and miles if you are using an airborne platform.

Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich:dittybopper: Don't carry a phone on you in the first place. It's not strictly necessary, despite what we tell ourselves: It's a modern convenience which most people didn't have even just 20 years ago. Even today, I get along just fine without carrying a cell phone everywhere I go.

Look, for a lot of us, carrying a smart phone is a necessity. I'm between work and so I bid on a lot of small IT jobs. If a work order goes out, and I don't have access to my e-mail to see it and put in an offer, someone else might have in 10 or 15 minutes. Either I sit at my computer all day or I miss out on money.

So you admit that you could adjust your behavior so that you wouldn't need to carry a smart phone?

They'll gladly surrender rather than pay for shiatty customer support, random bills (always higher than the last one) even though you're on a contract, and stores where they can't (or won't) do anything to help.

Switched to T-Mobile and have been living great, the bill is the same every month, and I don't have to worry about overages! No more contract, either.

So, in summary: Give the terrorists AT&T, give the rest of us T-Mobile. That should finish them off.

Oldiron_79:skeevy420: AT&T isn't bad service wise. I've always been happy with my reception, call quality, and net speeds, but the price just sucks and there's no real benefit to their extra data plan. Costs either $20 more a month for 2gb...or $10 for every gb over. Tethering plan is also $20 for two gb... or just flash a non AT&T rom and get free tethering while watching data use.

/if it connects to something else, it can be tracked, that's all ya need to know//Motorola phones pick up service where other phones have none....like where I camp at///if you're seriously worried about the NSA, design a space station/colony and leave Earth; they can pretty much track anyone anywhere if they want to, at least in space it'll take longer to get to you...unless there's a spy in your ranks

If there was an agent that sneaked aboard when he was all like (in best Daffy Duck voice) "You're all under arrest" Im pretty sure he would end up being released out the air lock.

The agent probably wouldn't need to break cover or be making arrests; they'd be gathering intelligence and probably assassinations. I'd imagine assassination in a colony wouldn't be that hard with good timing and the vacuum of space. A well placed explosive smaller than a pinky toe would do the job. That's operating under the assumption the spy had full communications with the agency.

I've thought about this quite a bit and would attempt it if I had a billion or two.

indarwinsshadow:Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich: indarwinsshadow: This highlights my confusion about certain terrorist aims and their people. They claim to hate the western world.

You don't really buy the "they hate us for our freedoms" line, do you?

Thinking about it, that's a complex question. On one hand, it's easy to dismiss some terrorists because of their lack of education and their indoctrination from the beginning into hating the western world. Yet, there's intelligent terrorists as well who are well educated and have been raised in a western world. Right now there's a trial going on in Canada, where three men stand accused of planning a terrorist act in Canada. The three are all well educated and have spent extensive time surrounded by western culture and ideas. The highlighted link goes to one of the accused who even additioned for Canadian idol (good Christ what a nut). So, my only conclusions is there is a disconnect between their rational and their emotional. A delusion where they feel their loyalty is based on their faith and the colour of their skin. It's complex isn't it? I don't get how you can hate something you love. Makes no sense to me.

we are the ones who invented the 'hate us for our freedoms' line. they hate us for very simple reasons, we provide arms and support to their enemies. we support politically deficient parties to ensure a friendly oil trade.

indarwinsshadow:Kind of like the Catholic church of old that said if it isn't in the bible, then it's not worthy of reading

Actually one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation was the RC Church's insistence on things that were not in the Bible and in fact directly contradicted several important parts of its teachings. But anyway.

One good thing about leaving my cell phone on is being able to subpoena and produce data proving I was across town walking my dog when some evil deed occurred. Pretty soon I'll be able to use gathered data to prove it wasn't me who had that conversation because at that time I was saying something else entirely to somebody else elsewhere. It's an airtight alibi!

dittybopper:Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich: dittybopper: Don't carry a phone on you in the first place. It's not strictly necessary, despite what we tell ourselves: It's a modern convenience which most people didn't have even just 20 years ago. Even today, I get along just fine without carrying a cell phone everywhere I go.

Look, for a lot of us, carrying a smart phone is a necessity. I'm between work and so I bid on a lot of small IT jobs. If a work order goes out, and I don't have access to my e-mail to see it and put in an offer, someone else might have in 10 or 15 minutes. Either I sit at my computer all day or I miss out on money.

So you admit that you could adjust your behavior so that you wouldn't need to carry a smart phone?

Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich:dittybopper: Don't carry a phone on you in the first place. It's not strictly necessary, despite what we tell ourselves: It's a modern convenience which most people didn't have even just 20 years ago. Even today, I get along just fine without carrying a cell phone everywhere I go.

Look, for a lot of us, carrying a smart phone is a necessity. I'm between work and so I bid on a lot of small IT jobs. If a work order goes out, and I don't have access to my e-mail to see it and put in an offer, someone else might have in 10 or 15 minutes. Either I sit at my computer all day or I miss out on money.

It's a false dichotomy anyway. Carrying a smartphone doesn't offer any more consent of police search than carrying a briefcase down the street does. I know dittybopper is coming from a realist perspective, but from a constitutional one, the suggestion that a law abiding person not carry cell phone to avoid an unconstitutional search should be deeply offensive to anyone who claims to care about civil liberties.

It's the same argument as "well, if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about." When you stand in opposition to the King, you have something to be worried about. Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. This is why we have a Bill of Rights to limit government intrusion to begin with. Realist or not, the suggestion that people who care about individual liberty should become modern-day Luddites to preserve their freedom plays right into the hands of authorities claiming the power to take it away.

One good reason to carry a turned-on cell phone is in case of accident or mishap I can call 911. This is Kentucky: banging on somebody's door might make them stand their ground at me, even if I'm yelling 'Help! Call 911! Call 911! Help! CALL NINE ONE ONE!!!'

"Dayyum Herbert, I never thought I'd get a chance to use that Mosin thingy ya gimme fer Crissmass. But yer right, it does shoot clean through two inches of solid wood! And a weirdo with a busted leg, and the wall across the street, and that poor guy's kid."